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Pink and crew do video for anti-bullying organization, urge us to 'Break the Chain'

PINK_IN_CONCERT_-_ANAHEIM_16084591.JPG

Pink -- captured during a performance in Anaheim, Calif., last month -- and her dancers and crew have lent their talents to a video supporting the global anti-bullying orgnization "One Billion Rising for Justice.''
(Chris Pizzello, Associated Press File)

The effervescent singer today released a video of her and her crew – dancers, roadies, everyone – dancing to the campaign’s anthem, “Break the Chain.’’

It’s a dynamic performance, and clearly heartfelt. That comes through in a statement from Pink that accompanied the release of the video:

"I have never liked bullies of any kind. Whether it's someone picking on the ‘fat’ kid, the ‘retarded’ kid, the ‘short’ kid, the ‘black’ kid, the ‘Asian’ kid, the ‘gay’ kid, the ‘girl,’ cause she ‘hits like a girl’ or is the ‘weaker sex.’

“You name it. Different ‘reasons,’ same ‘bully.’ The bully is the problem. The bully needs a hug, a lesson, enlightenment. The bully is the one that really feels inferior, so he/she picks on someone else to make that person feel inferior, too.

“When I read about this organization, how people get together of their own free will and dance, use their bodies, to express their rage- outrage- around the injustice that women feel all over the world, every day -- I was inspired. . . . We are all equally deserving of respect and personal space. I will fight for that right for all of us.’’

I have my own reasons for hating bullies.

In 1971, my family and I were living in Tampa, Fla., while my father went back to college to finish his degree in economics. We were there under an Army program called Operation Bootstrap, which allowed active-duty officers to attend school and still get paid.

But Army salaries never have been very lucrative, and my father, who’s now gone, and I share one trait: We’re cheap. So we were living in one of Tampa’s cheapest areas, which means it was not exactly the safest.

OK, so picture this: There’s a skinny, nerdy kid with glasses whose father is a soldier (at the height of the anti-Vietnam War era). A kid who happens to be a pretty good student in a neighborhood where being a good student was not nearly as cool as being able to beat the daylights out of the nerdy sons of Army officers.

Oh, and I was a lieutenant on the school safety patrol.

Yeah, I got my behind handed to me, and on a regular basis. I still have a piece of bone floating around underneath my left eye socket from where I was punched, early and often.

By bullies. Or rather, one particular bully. I will never forget his name, but it’s not worth sharing here.

What’s important is that while I couldn’t understand it back then, I do now. That particular bully knew that as soon as eighth grade was done, I was outta there. He, however, was stuck. I doubt that he understood it any more than I did.

But now maybe he, like me, may have figured it out. And realized it’s time to “Break the Chain.’’

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